Title: Whispers of the mind
Author: fazy
Pairing: Haldir/ Elrond.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 1st person narrative. 21st century Scotland, Haldir feels his husband is neglecting him.
Warnings: Mpreg, fatalism, depression, self-harm, eventual character deaths.
He doesn't touch me at night. I hear him enter the room, and I hurriedly stifle my tears, lay very still and pretend that I am asleep. He goes about his business, putting away his things, changing into his nightclothes, getting through his evening toilette. I hear his footfalls around the room, his steady, rhythmic pace as he goes through his daily routine.
He checks the glass vial at the bedside table to see if I have taken the medicine, then pauses at his side of the bed. What is he doing? I do not know. My back is turned, so I cannot catch his face while he stands silently. It feels like an entire hour has passed before he sighs, draws back the covers and slides into bed.
He does not touch me. He has been very careful not to of late. I sense the awkwardness in his movements, they are not natural and free. He does not want to disturb me. He thinks I am too ill to be disturbed, he thinks the best thing he can do is to leave me alone. But I do not want to be left alone. I want to feel him embrace me. I want to feel his love.
I listen for his breathing to take on the heaviness of sleep, but for hours it remains shallow and unsteady. I feel his eyes on me. He is watching me, probably propped up against his pillow, watching my back. He watches me for hours, until I sense the shift in the air as the night goes through it's coldest phase. And still he watches me.
The night sounds change. It is amazing how it is possible to tell the time of the night by the noises of the nocturnals. It is almost four in the morning before he finally sighs again and takes his eyes off me. He shifts in bed, and I hear the crinkle of his pillows as he curls up on his side. Finally. Soon I would be able to stop pretending.
His breathing grows labored, and a strange sound reaches my ears. It is a mixture of erratic panting and stifled mewling, firmly suppressed even as it leaves his throat, and it some time before I realize with shock that it is the sound of a man who forgotten how to cry.
My husband weeps.
I throw off my duvet in alarm and drape myself across his back, reaching down to caress his face. My hand comes away damp. He never weeps. He looks up at me, and his face contorts as hope and hopelessness do battle. But he does not speak. I take his hand and he holds it tight. I do not wait for him to seek me out. I am afraid that if I wait, I will wait forever. He does not come to me. He does not know how. It is always he who waits for me to come to him. It has never been any other way.
"Hervenn.." I say first. I am afraid if I wait, I will wait forever. He shifts so that he lies flat on the bed, so that I am no longer sprawled across his back but across his chest, and looks at me with wide, sorrowful eyes. I dash what remains of his tears from his eyes, but my gesture breaks something in him, and he starts weeping afresh.
"I don't know what to do, Haldir," he chokes between sobs. "I've done everything I can, I've tried everything I know…" He cups my face between his hands and looks at me, grief-stricken. Fearful.
Fearful?
Ah, Clelebrian. He had lost his wife to an illness, hadn't he? He had worked in vain to nurse her back to health, he had tried everything he knew how but she grew weaker despite his best efforts. He had seen his wife literally fade away before his eyes, helpless to do anything to stop it, and now he is afraid his husband would go down that same route. He is terrified. I see it in his eyes.
"Hervenn…" I whisper. He runs his hand through my hair and shudders when a whole fistfull of it comes loose in his hand. I am not surprised. My hair has been coming off in clumps. He stares at the pale yellow strands in his hand with his eyes wide, trembles, and then tosses it away. He draws me close and hugs me desperately to his chest.
"Don't leave me," he whispers. "Don't leave me, Haldir. Please don't go." He is crying now, and so am I. "I don't know what to do," he says again. "I've tried everything. I just don't know what to do. Tell me what I must do. Don't leave me, Haldir. I love you." He pleads to me to say something, I cannot. My throat is too full with the sounds of my sobs to be of any use to either of us. He rocks me in his arms, more for his benefit than for mine, and weeps chokingly.
"Love me," I say at last.
"I do love you."
I take his hand and look into his eyes. "Love me," I say again, gently this time. He is confused. He does not know my meaning. He brushes my hair away from my face and looks searchingly at me. He does not understand. He does not know my meaning. "I don't feel it," I say at last. And it is true. I know he loves me. I know that in my head, from logical reasoning. "But I don't feel it."
He pales. He is like a child who has just been slapped, and I know I have just dashed his world to pieces. His eyes brim with anguish. "What do you mean you mean…" he says slowly. The words are tight and grating, they sound like they are forced from the depth of his dry throat.
His eyes grow glazed, and I know he is seeing the images of us happy together. A quiet meal in his study. Reading by the fireplace. A post-dinner cuddle. A flower bath in the Jacuzzi. Walking together in the snow. Dancing in the rain. A grass fight in the rose garden. My binding myself to him. His declaration of love to me. A deep red rose on the pillow, freshly picked from our special hybrid.
"Does all that mean nothing?" he says weakly. His breathing is alarmingly shallow. "All that… nothing?"
I weep to see his pain. I love this man with all my heart, and it hurts me to see him like this. "Ai, no… they are very special," I say. "I love to do things with you. I love it when you pull me outdoors with you, or… all the precious memories. But they happen once and I feel it so strongly, but then the moment passes and... What about every day? You pay more attention to your work than you do to me. What about me? What about Baby? I'm pregnant. I've been pregnant for months and we haven't even talked about Baby's name."
And finally I had said it, said the words that were holding me down. But it was a hollow victory. I felt that I had achieved nothing.
"We haven't talked about it because you didn't want to talk about it."
"But I want to! I've wanted to for ages! I just never knew how. Why didn't you help me? Why didn't you tell me what to say! Why didn't you bother to help me say it!" I am crying now, crying with abandon. "You are never there when I need you. Your seneschal cares about me more than you do. Ivan spends more time with me than you! I hate you!" I scream. I throw a pillow at him, and then I try to smother him with it, but I am weak and my mind is in pieces, and he somehow manages to wrestle me down again.
I whimper and thrash like a mad animal, but he has pinned me down too securely for me to break free. "Let me go!" I scream. "Let me go you dirty mongrel! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE you! Bloody peredhil. Filthy half-breed! Let me go!"
Elrond starts. He releases his grip and sinks back into bed. I freeze, horrified at what I have just said, horrified at what I just called him. I stare dazedly at him. His eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth pressed thin to seal in his hurt but the rest of his face is carefully blank. "Elrond," I say tentatively. He does not look at me. I start to cry again, this time out of remorse and helplessness. What can I do to make things better? I had hit him where it hurt the hardest, and there was no way to recall what had already left my mouth.
"Elrond?" I say again. My voice is sore from all my crying and I end up croaking like a frog. "I'm sorry." I reach out to touch his cheek but he ignores me and stares straight ahead of him. "Aeron?" I try again. I am getting desperate. He still takes no notice of me. I heave myself up and crawl towards him. I drape my arms around his neck and try to kiss him, but he shoves me roughly aside, so that I fall back against the headboard.
He is hurt, I know, and it is all my fault. But being pushed away like that is more than I can take. I break down into sobs and pull the covers over my head. There will be no more attempts at communication tonight.
TBC...
HiddenPortrait: heh, thanks! i'm experimenting with a new style... the leggy one was a breakthrough in that it was my first landmark LoTR fic... like a first one with a real storyline and progression and all. then i did a couple along those lines... Dreamscape (i love Dreamscape) is one of them. others are scatterd in various archives. (ff,net dont allow for sex scenes..). and then i did Eyes of a Lover (which i am in love with!!). this is in the same style of Eyes, only this is a long fic.
smoothNcreamy: heh, i had a lot of bad reviews abt chappie 1. glad you stayed thru though. :D and dont worry, things get better. i'm at chappie 11 now, and i can promise you things look nice for a bit. where it goes from there is supposed to be bittersweet... if only i can persuade them to write themselves that way. honestly, the charries never do as i tell them to! ;)
ancara-iii: thanks for the review! :D and it is alive... i've just done a draft of chappie 11.
des and les: lets see... what gave me the inspiration? hmmm.... i guess i just love mpreg. hehe. and i love this pairing. my partner and i always write haldir/elrond. i do haldir, she does elrond... and that way their relationship kinda keeps a form of realism cos i never know how E's gonna react. and thanks for saying it's true to life! /blush/ am flattered.
Knight Kenobi of Eryn Lasgalen: heheh. thanks. sorry to hear abt your laptop tho. i have a laptop too, and it's my little Baby. i love my laptop.
Haldir's Heart and Soul: assuming you do pop by again, hehe. hi dear! glad to see you here.
Dread Lady Freya: thanks for the review. it's been a long time, but that was the very first review for Whispers and i just wanna say thanks. /hugs freya/ thanks!!!